The Golden Angel (My Hero Academia)
She admits, she was selfish.
For the first 22 years of her life - she avoided japan with ease. Even with the..state of the world, later on.
She spawned into the world at the age of 7 on the steps of an orphanage.
Of course, that sounds wrong - apparently after various visits to a hospital it was concluded that her memory of the past seven years of her life was wiped, the reasons for this was endless speculation ; a quirk manifestation gone wrong, she saw something she wasn't meant to, it was done in malicious intent, it was done with non-malicious intent - at the end of the day, none of that mattered, as her memory was still gone.
She doesn't know, and no one else does. It's a mystery.
This is the first lie she's told you. She knows what happened, of course. Her quirk is 'remembrance' - she can recall things on a dime. A minor quirk, completely useless - if it weren't for the fact it evolved.
Her family - well, more like her sire and matron - as they weren't very..parental. They were a part of a modern crime syndicate in america, and had been training her up to work in the same syndicate. They didn't like her, she doesn't know why - but they treated her more like a misbehaving dog than their child. Eventually, a house fire occurred. Her quirk evolved in the process. They all survived, but her parents wiped her memory because apparently the fire was 'her fault.'
She's told you three lies now - can you guess which is which?
Ah well - never mind, you can't exactly speak can you? That was cruel of her, she apologies.
She figures she owes you the real story - not the one hidden in layers of falsehoods.
Her name was Kana Tarot, but it used to be Angel Sauer.
Even Kana Tarot was a bit of a fake name - her mother told her, "Your name, it's Yanagi Kaneko. Your father just prefers if people don't know we're foreigners, so people call you Kana, okay?" She doesn't know why her father wanted to hide the fact they weren't locals - she just knew it was something he did.
Angel was not a similar case in that regard, in fact - she died, and lived again. She's completely quirkless - she has the toe joint and everything. The reason Kana remembers Angel at all is because 'remembrance' is her father's quirk. His quirk was the ability to remind people of things, as long as it's still in their brain somewhere - like a refresher.
See, he prided himself ever the unorthodox quirk scientist - he wanted to see what would happen if he made a baby remember something from before their birth. Is it possible? He tried on smaller children, they just got headaches - young adults just became disorientated, it had no effect on older adults. He therefore came to the conclusion that babies would be more malleable for his cause.
For three years of her life, she was oblivious. She thought she was lucky - the one in seven billion to be reborn and remember it. A gift from the heavens. She didn't remember her birth - but she figured she just repressed it. So like a fool - when he mother finally asked Kana about her memory, she replied honestly. She spoke of Angel Sauer.
That was the first and last time she ever talked about Angel to anyone.
Mother was overjoyed, and spoke to father. Father was overjoyed.
Then the experiments started - "Tell us about Angel, hm?" "Kana! Just - talk about her, and we'll let you take a nap, okay?" "Nana, You can have a snack later, let's talk about Angel now hm?"
Even then - it was lighter, but still wrong. It made her feel uncomfortable, even then - when she was under the impression her parents were just skeptical of everything, rather then interested in it. She decided that she would rather..not talk about Angel. There was just something eerie happening there- and she really didn't like it.
Yeah, it started progressing the less she talked overall. She was kept inside more, she was given snacks less, which progressed to 'missing' dinner sometimes, to 'missing lunch' too - eventually it was just..literal torture. Father - or well, she supposes at that point he was far past the stage of 'father' - he seemed to get increasingly agitated as the months passed.
His quirk could bring people's memories to the forefront of their mind as long as they existed, and Mother's quirk could enhance people's memories - like bringing up the quality of a photo. Neither had the ability to view memories - and they were reluctant to bring other people in on their incredibly illegal science experiment - everyone has heard of interesting children going missing, especially that of the quirk phenomena variation.
Eventually, by the time she was seven her parents had basically driven themselves insane. They tried getting angry - wanting to scare her into speaking, they tried pleading with her - offering basic necessities like a shower or a meal in return of information, they tried crying to evoke an emotional sympathetic response, they tried manipulation - nothing worked.
They died of overwork when she was seven.
She walked to the orphanage - a few cities away. She didn't want to be connected to the whole thing. She said her name was Yanagi Kaneko - and she left Kana Tarot behind. The hospital did scans of her brain and saw repeated stress, and used it as an explanation for the amnesia.
Yanagi Kaneko looked nothing like Kana Tarot - because the last time anyone saw Kana Tarot, well - she was a toddler. She was officially declared missing a month after Kana talked about Angel to her mother. She would be officially considered dead by the time Kaneko turned ten.
In these situations - it's customary to get someone with a lie detecting quirk to verify the story. Lying about something as serious as someone wiping a seven year old's entire memories clean is a serious offense and treated as such - but really, in this case it was just a precaution.
She looked at the police officer, and lied to his face with a very convincing timid face - "I'm Yanagi- or, well Kaneko Yanagi maybe?... and I remember things better than other people do. The doctors say I have 'am-knees-ah' and that means I can't remember stuff - ..uh..what else..um..I miss my parents very much and want to reunite with them? They miss me a lot, I bet."
See - lie detector quirks are curious things, they'll always see the subjective truth ; sort of like actual lie detectors. To the police man her statement looked more like-
"I am Yanagi Kaneko," - truth, because she is Yanagi Kaneko. "-and I remember things better than other people do." Truth, she does remember things better than other people. Tends to happen when your brain grows to constantly recall and refocus on memories from a lifetime ago. However in this case, it would be assumed "i remember stuff good" equals quirk. Not her fault, really.
"The doctors say I have amnesia, and that means I can't remember anything," Here's where it gets tricky - yes, the doctors did say she had amnesia, and if she did have amnesia that does mean she would not remember anything ; so truth. But there's a huge issue with this she'll go over later. "-I miss my parents very much and want to reunite with them" Truth, unfortunately. She's very attached to them - despite her best efforts to make sure she didn't. She cried several times over the course of the walk to the orphanage. "They miss me a whole lot, I bet." Lie, they would be worried about their experiment getting out, sure - but they don't care much for their daughter these days.
Well - even if they did worry about their daughter it doesn't matter much now, seeing as they are dead and whatnot.
See, the issue with Kaneko's plan is that it's obvious - especially to someone who has a lie detecting quirk. They're trained to pick up those selective truths - but in this case, what Kaneko didn't say is far more concerning then what she did.
The officer stared at her, long and analyzing before asking- "Do you think that your parents loved you?"
A bit blunt, but she can match it she supposes - "I... love my parents very much. I'm sure they loved me too." Truth / Lie.
"I... love my parents very much," Truth, unfortunately, "I'm sure they loved me too." Lie, obviously.
The officer just sighed and walked away.
As such, Kana Tarot and Angel Sauer faded into obscurity, and only Yanagi Kaneko remained.
A few years passed, and Yanagi Kaneko got a lovely place in the business course of an obscure hero school in america - it was easy, mostly because it had been in the city her orphanage was in.
She intended to become a professional quirk analyst - which was, yes, a real profession. It's their job to deduce things about villains and their habits and figure out their quirk through it. Unlike Japan, most people in america are unfortunately not just named after their quirks here ; so they need divisions to analyze quirks accordingly.
Her life went fine, she lived on campus and even got a nice boyfriend - a nice guy with a super-strength quirk in the hero course that liked Kaneko, regardless of the large scar that dragged on through her face. It was ugly, obvious, but thankfully missed her eyes - it was the byproduct of her 'forgotten childhood.' Quite the tear-jeaker, but well - it wasn't getting her a lot of suitors.
Then at sixteen, the war started, the beginning of the end.
See - Kaneko had left out a very large fact, before now.
She remembers My Hero Academia - the popular Anime featured in Angel Sauer's life.
The series "My Hero Academia" definitely did not exist here - no matter how far into the future.
But the contents of the series did exist, in fact she'd say she was living in it.
Kaneko knew the broad strokes - and she remembered them with terrifying clarity - but she never did anything about them, because of the war. She didn't know the details of it, other then the fact that several things happened - Invisible girl got a face, Bakugou almost died, Dabi was confirmed to be Touya Todoroki - and the final strangest thing - Aoyama was the U.A. traitor. An arc that showed up once in season one, then was seemingly forgotten about.
The thing is - the war was unknown. The manga was still running when Angel died, so Kaneko always just assumed that the war ended with the good guys winning.
So she, like a coward, stayed in america. She avoided Japan with ease - really most people never leave their home country, and her active fear of heights could be attributed to her lack of travel if she was ever asked.
She always assumed the war in japan would end without her needing to interfere, that the protagonist would prevail above all.
Long story short - the war didn't end period.
Eventually the nomus started leaving Japan - and hit America.
Her boyfriend abandoned her during a raid - apparently he had been dating her just for 'funsies' and he 'didn't expect to have to survive the end of the world with her' - which she supposes is fair, most people don't date in highschool with the fact they might need to stay together while the world ends in mind.
Still an asshole for that though.
She survived pretty long - her quirk analyzing and high memory made it easy to find patterns in the nomu raids and she eventually got through the rubble of america with ease. By the time she was 22 she was one of the only people in America left.
The remaining survivors called her "The Golden Angel" - if you found her she would lead you to a place that would be safe for a solid week before disappearing, but finding her in the first place was always the hard part.
She found the title amusing and ironic - Kaneko means Golden child, and Angel means - well, Angel. Though she figures the "golden angel" thing comes more from her metallic gold hair then anything else.
Eventually though, as all humans tend to do - she kicked the bucket. She got real sick - as the olden called it - 'consumption.'
Or well - tuberculosis, but that sounds a lot less dramatic then consumption.
Yeah, 22 years old - the end of the world, and tuberculosis did her in. Tuberculosis.
So imagine her surprise when she opens her eyes after a particularly bad coughing fit -
'Really..? I expected to die that time...'
Just to find herself in a familiar scene. Standing directly over her parents' warm corpses, seven years old again.
Oh.
So she needed to do this again.
How cruel.
Well, she always regretted not calling the police back then - see, she raided her old house at the beginning of the war.
It was very secluded, a cabin in the woods - no one ever found her parents bodies.
That was pretty disturbing. It probably would have been worse if she hadn't buried them before she left the first time.
While digging through the house - she found out she had a maternal grandmother that had been still alive at the time of her parent's demise, as well as an uncle that could take her in readily.
Their surnames?
Kaminari.
Apparently, Kaneko's mother took her surname from Kaneko's father. Not weird - but Kaneko had never really faced the idea that her parents had lives outside of torturing children before.
The last letter her uncle sent Kaneko's mother dated back to around when Kaneko was first born - and it was telling her about his son, Kaminari Denki.
Really, she could have fixed everything if she just called the police and let herself go through the proper channels.
So this time, after a mild panic attack on the floor - she didn't think much about it as she walked over her parents'...."states" and dialed 911.
Apparently, the world was upset she didn't do it right the first time. Right, okay. She got the message - "Do better" and such. A passive aggressive way to achieve that, but well - it definitely got her attention.
...Ah, she always loved time-travel fix-it stories. Why not live one? Her life is ridiculous enough to include that. Reincarnation, transmigration, regression - the whole set - really it's not the strangest notion she could have lived through.
Really, the only thing she thinks could phase her these days was if she suddenly could communicate with animals or something.
.....She really hopes she didn't jinx anything just then.